Pavel Cenkl, PhD
Dean of Academic Affairs
he/him
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Pavel Cenkl is the Dean of Academic Affairs at Prescott College. He has worked for more than 20 years in academic leadership at progressive independent colleges in the US and abroad. His work focuses on the intersection of transformative learning, community and ecology and on finding the tangible steps we can take together toward a more regenerative and resilient educational future. Prior to joining Prescott, Pavel was the Founder and Director of the Regenerative Learning Network; Head of Schumacher College (Devon, UK) and Dean of Sterling College in Vermont. Pavel writes and speaks widely about curriculum design and pedagogy, global learning networks, environmental humanities and philosophy and has developed programs in ecology, humanities, outdoor skills and recreation, regenerative food and farming, and more. Pavel’s books include Transformative Learning: Reflections on 30 Years of Head, Heart, and Hands at Schumacher College (with Satish Kumar, 2021); Nature and Culture in the Northern Forest: Region, Heritage, and Environment in the Rural Northeast (2010); and This Vast Book of Nature: Writing the Landscape of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, 1784–1911 (2006). His current book project is titled Networked Learning: Transforming Higher Education through Distributed Learning.
Pavel is also a keen trail runner, cross-country, skimo and backcountry skier, mountain biker, and rock and ice climber. For the past decade, his passion for endurance running, ecological thinking, and teaching has led Pavel to share his adventures as witness to climate change and an exploration of the resilience of the human and more-than-human in the Arctic, sub-Arctic, and beyond.
- Regenerative learning
- Educational futures
- De-institutionalized and distributed learning networks
- Environmental humanities and philosophy
- Systems thinking
- Network philosophy
- Posthumanism
- New materialism
- Interspecies collaborations
- Food systems
Publications:
Cenkl, Pavel and Satish Kumar, editors. Transformative Learning: Reflections on 30 Years of Head, Heart, and Hands at Schumacher College. New Society Publishers, 2021.
“Relational Ecologies: Building Regenerative Community Learning Networks.” Regenerative Ecosystems in the Anthropocene: An Interdisciplinary Ecosystemic Framework for Regenerativeness, edited by Amar Nayak, Springer Publishing, August 2024.
“A Relational Flourishing.” Clima Utopyas. One Day in 2050, edited by Jaume Encisco, July 2024.
“Lessons from the Periphery.” Regenerative Learning: Nurturing People and Caring for the Planet, edited by Satish Kumar and Lorna Howarth, Global Resilience Publishing, 2023.
“Regenerative Learning.” Transformative Learning: Reflections on 30 Years of Head, Heart, and Hands at Schumacher College, edited by Pavel Cenkl and Satish Kumar, New Society Publishing, 2021, 257-265.
Presentations:
“Cultivating a Global Curriculum for Local Leadership in Regenerative Food Systems,” Talk with Kate Rudd and Lisa Trocchia, Re-imagining Education Conference (REC) 4.0, 25 October 2024.
“A Global Regenerative Food Systems Curriculum,” Panel presentation, Conscious Food Systems as a Pathway to Planetary Health, Garrison, NY, 20 September 2024.
“Interwoven Ecologies: Movement and Regeneration in a More-than-Human World,” Invited Talk at the Museum of the White Mountains, Plymouth State University, Plymouth, NH, 17 September 2024.
“Hybrid Ecological Networks: Designing Relational and Receptive Learning,” Cumulus 2024: P/References of Design, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest, HU, 15-17 May 2024
“Regenerative Design Futures: De-institutionalising Learning and Disentangling from Extractive Narratives,” co-panelist with Mona Nasseri, Untangling Design Purpose Conference, Istituto Marangoni London and Macromedia University Munich, 17 April 2024.
“Agroecology as Pedagogy,” Speaker and panel co-organiser, Oxford Real Farming Conference, 4-5 January 2024
“Conscious Leadership for Local Regenerative Food Systems,” Invited panel speaker. UNDP Conscious Food Systems Alliance, Oxford Real Farming Conference, 4-5 January 2024.
“Sustainability in Small Independent Providers,” Invited Talk. Independent Higher Education Annual Conference, London, 28 November 2023.
“De-institutionalising learning,” Invited Talk. Knowledge Cities World Summit 2023: Adapting to Climate-Change through Regenerative Transformation of Cities and Regions, Lindau, Germany, 30 November 2023.
“Leading Change in the Anthropocene,” Invited talk, University College London, 25 January 2023.
“Ecologies of Motion: Building Regenerative Community Networks,” Invited keynote talk, International Symposium on Regenerative Ecosystems, XIM University, Bhubaneswar, India. 29 November 2022.